Rupert Brooke

“ He was big, well-made, and strong, and he drove the car, not wildly, but a little too fast, leaning back rather insolently, conscious of power. In private life, no doubt, a very ordinary youth, interested only in baseball scores; but in this brief passage he seemed like a Greek god, in a fantastically modern, yet not unworthy way emblemed and incarnate, or like the spirit of Henley's 'Song of Speed.' So I found a better image of America for my sculptor than the shirt-sleeved young man. ”

“ I have seen them, fat, middle-aged business men, scampering up and down the face of the cars by means of their hands, swinging themselves over and round and above each other, like nothing in the world so much as the monkeys at the Zoo. ”

“ All the lesser things one has heard turn out to be delightfully true. The first hour in America proves them. People here talk with an American accent; their teeth are inlaid with gold; the mouths of car-conductors move slowly, slowly, with an oblique oval motion, for they are chewing ”

“ I passed up a side-street, one of those deserted ways that abound just off the big streets, resorts, apparently, for such people and things as are not quite strident or not quite energetic enough for the ordinary glare of life ”

“ And there are intermediate varieties, as of the genial business-man, with the narrow forehead and the wide, smooth—the too wide and too smooth—lower face. Smoothness is the one unfailing characteristic. Why do American faces hardly ever wrinkle? ”

“ In five things America excels modern England—fish, architecture, jokes, drinks, and children's clothes. There may be others. Of these I am certain. The jokes and drinks, which curiously resemble each other, are the best. There is a cheerful violence about them; they take their respective kingdoms by storm. ”

“ To the man in the mirk of the street, they seem to exude this light from the great spaces of brick. At this time the cars, always polyglot, are filled with shop-hands and workers, and no English at all is heard. One is surrounded with Yiddish, Italian, and Greek, broken by Polish, or Russian, or German. Some American anthropologists claim that the children of these immigrants show marked changes, in the shape of skull and face, towards the American type. ”

“ The young man leapt suddenly, lunged, smote imaginary balls, belaboured invisible opponents, ran with immense speed but no progress, was thrown to earth by the Prince of the Air, kicked, struggled, then bounded to his feet again. ”

“ For it is less true of the Bostonian than of the ordinary business American, in whose life exhilaration and depression take the place of joy and suffering. The women's faces are more indeterminate, not very feminine; many of them wear those 'invisible' pince-nez which centre glitteringly about the bridge of the nose, and get from them a curious air of intelligence. Handsome people of both sexes are very common; beautiful, and pretty, ones very rare....
I slipped from my car up about Fortieth Street, the region where the theatres and restaurants are, the 'roaring forties'. ”

“ Only in their dress and gait have they—or at least the men among them—become at all American.
The American by race walks better than we; more freely, with a taking swing, and almost with grace. How much of this is due to living in a democracy, and how much to wearing no braces, it is very difficult to determine. ”

“ A wary eavesdropper can always surprise the secret of a city, through chance scraps of conversation, or by spying from a window, or by coming suddenly round corners. I started on a 'car.' American tram-cars are open all along the side and can be entered at any point in it. ”

“ Also, Americans take their coats off, which is sensible; and they can do it the more beautifully because they are belted, and not braced. They take their coats off anywhere and anywhen, and somehow it strikes the visitor as the most symbolic thing about them. They have not yet thought of discarding collars; but they are unashamedly shirt-sleeved. ”

“ It is shared to some extent by the lower classes; but their mouths tend to be wider and more expressive. Their foreheads are meaner, and their eyes hard, but the whole face rather more adaptive and in touch with life. ”

“ Between these vertical bars you squeeze into the seat. If the seat opposite you is full, you swing yourself along the bars by your hands till you find room. The Americans become terrifyingly expert at this. ”